Commentary - Women Ask Less Often Than Men Partly Because They Work Fewer Hours (Revised Manuscript)

Abstract

A long debate in negotiation research concerns the question of whether gender differences actually exist at the negotiation table. Whereas past negotiation research suggested that women initiate negotiations less often than men, a recent study by Artz, Goodall, and Oswald (2018) seems to suggest that women “ask” as often as men do about higher wages or salary. However, this finding by Artz et al. (2018) was obtained once the number of weekly hours worked was added as a covariate in the analysis. In this commentary, we show that the number of weekly hours worked should be conceptualized as a mediator of gender differences, which changes the interpretation of the findings by Artz et al. (2018): Women do in fact ask less often than men about higher pay because they work fewer weekly hours. Based on this advanced conceptualization of weekly hours, our commentary has crucial theoretical implications for the understanding of gender differences in negotiation and practical implications for the effective reduction of gender inequalities.